


Tragic Like an Old Western

by mariigold86



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dream Team SMP Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Kinoko Kingdom, Mentioned Alexis | Quackity, Mentioned Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travelling Karl Jacobs, Web Series: Tales from the SMP, dream team farming simulator real, no beta we die like el rapids, sapnap cowboy also real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariigold86/pseuds/mariigold86
Summary: This was the real tragedy, Sapnap knew, in the quiet that stretched endlessly on and in the forever behind him. This waiting, this patience, it was the only way he could love the people who weren't strong enough to stay.In the days that follow Karl's periodic disappearances, Sapnap fills the silence with dull domesticity, and thinks about the signs that should have pointed him far, far away from this mess that was friendship. If he knew where they had all gone, maybe he wouldn't feel so terribly alone.or: cowboy sapnap thinks about how his fiancé is a dirty time traveler and then eats stew
Relationships: Karl Jacobs & Sapnap
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Tragic Like an Old Western

Sapnap found the field that would become Kinoko in the awkward, rambling months between winter and spring, when the grasses were just beginning to flower and the sun was still low on the horizon. It was warmer here than anything Sapnap had ever felt, not frozen like the sloping hills of Snowchester, or damp and cold like L’Manberg and the surrounding Assembly territories. It wasn’t hot like the Nether, either; that place burned and frothed and steamed, and it was not kind. 

Karl was the one, in the end, who decided that the fields would be their home. He laid the foundations of a farmhouse, and it was his efforts that made it what it was today. It didn’t matter that Sapnap had done the heavy lifting, or that George had set the beams in place to hold the structure together. Ever the project manager, Karl’s influence was the glue.

This influence was most evident from the outside, when the farmhouse would lean into the wind and sing like a kettle. Dark oak planks held together a vibrant red-shingled roof, and thick-paned windows opened up their yawning mouths on either side of the heavy oak door. Along the windowsills, Karl had filled planters to spill over with morning glories. They climbed up the shutters to tangle in the fingers of a tall white trellis, brilliant purple against the deep brown. It was vibrant and cozy and bright and so warm that it made Sapnap’s heart ache to look at it.

Really, this whole place was Karl — the barn and its thick white trim like a candy cane backed into the hillside; the library, which smelled like fresh ink and old paper, and ticked like a clock if you held your breath in the silence; even the fields, which stretched endlessly on to meet the horizon, seemed to greet the fresh morning with the vivacity of the man who had given them their name.

The interior, though, was Sapnap. The floors were white and clean, the kitchen was homely and full, and the table in the dining room was always set for company. Sapnap knew friendship like no one else could, because friendship was waiting, and he had waited endlessly. He was still waiting, even now that he had made a home for himself alongside some of his closest friends. That hurt almost as much as the warmth.

Karl wasn’t home. He hadn’t been home for a while. This much Sapnap knew, though the extent to which Karl _wasn’t_ and the connotations lurking throughout _home_ were a mystery to him. 

Karl kept his travels guarded, and each time, he would return tight-lipped and pale, shaking until Sapnap managed to pull him into a chair. He placed steaming broth onto the table, set a spoon in his hand, and waited for realization to dawn in his eyes. Then, that dim terror would slip off like a mask, and Karl would take Sapnap’s hand and thank him for dinner. Each time, Sapnap had to pretend like he didn’t hear the quiet creak of floorboards as his friend paced through the night.

“If you told me,” he tried once, gripping Karl’s sleeve in his balled fist. “I could help you. We could all help you. We’re your friends, Karl. I’m your friend.” At the last part, Sapnap had watched Karl’s face contort into something scared and wounded, and he’d been quiet until he had crept up to his bedroom.

Sapnap learned that it was easier just to play the role that he had been given.

And that was the role of housekeeper. Farmhand. Shepherd. Cook. Patient friend who watches and waits and loves without asking for anything in return. In the time that Karl spent in the nowhere he kept secret, and when George searched for Quackity in the ruins of a fallen L’Manberg, Sapnap was all of this alone.

He wasn’t lonely; it was hard to feel lonely after all the time he spent by himself. It was a hollow familiarity, and it was tangible, but it didn’t bother him like it might have. And either way, he had a job to do. Karl would appreciate laundered sheets when he came back. Even if he didn’t use the bed that night, and even if it hadn’t been unmade in weeks, it was the thought that counted.

The clothesline ran from the side of the house to the crabapple tree that curled over their side yard. It bloomed with damp white sheets, and they flowered up to the sun with all the radiance and vibrancy that they could muster. Sapnap appreciated them for that as he went about unpinning pillowcases from the line. 

There was a thin breeze combing the grass today, and it billowed up under the sheets like the sails of some great ship. It was enough to ruffle his hair and catch the loose ties of his shirt, and it made him smile, even though the quilt was the exact shade of ugly that only Karl could have picked out, and it smelled like leather and paper no matter how many times he washed it.

There had been a time, once, when Karl hadn’t been bound and sealed with wax, when he hadn’t been leather and paper and ink set on a shelf to keep secrets and never be read. As Sapnap bundled the blankets into a laundry hamper, he let his fingers brush against the embroidery, and tried to stomach the nausea that roiled in his stomach like hot water on a stove. He set the hamper on the porch, up against the door so that he wouldn’t forget it the next time he went inside.

The stables were next. Sapnap trekked down the dusty path that led away from their home, wincing against the red earth kicked up by the wind. He pulled his hat down low over his face, even though it did little to combat the elements. It kept the sun out of his eyes and that, at least, was a relief; it was hot in the fields, away from the cool, damp forests and the young orchard.

There, Karl had tied thin scarves around the necks of saplings in every color imaginable. Each one sported a different gaudy print, the loudest that Karl could spare from his closet. Sapnap remembered wiping the sweat from his face with his t-shirt, and looking up to see him zig-zagging from tree to tree, trodding carefully on the fresh soil, and tying knots with gentle hands that ghosted over the limbs of budding apple trees.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sapnap had asked, and there was humor in his tone that he couldn’t hold back, even through the mock-annoyance that he put forward.

“It gets cold out here at night, pard’ner,” Karl tossed back in a heavy southern drawl. He was bright in the shade of their new forest. “Can’t have these here folks catchin’ colds and whatnot.” 

“How would you know?” Sapnap barked back. “You don’t sleep here!” He laughed, and let his head fall back to take in the sunlight filtering in through the branches.

When he lowered his gaze, Karl had gone quiet and far away. It only took a minute of strange, distant silence for him to wander off. Sapnap finished planting, and didn’t see Karl that night at dinner.

He heard the pacing, though, and that was enough. It had to be enough. Karl had been there the next morning, bleary and unsure, but he was there.

It was a thought that made Sapnap stop, hand pressed up against the steady barn doors, eyes unfocused as he stared into the wood grain. Karl was tired all the time, and he was a shell of his former self, but he was there. He was there behind the spoon in his loose grip and the broth steaming in his face and the white terror in his eyes. He was there, and it had to be enough. It had to be.

Sapnap shook himself, rolled his shoulders back, and pressed against the door. The memories fell behind him, and he let them drift on the red wind and be taken by the sky.

Inside, the barn was dark, lit only by the light that streamed in through high, thin windows that hung suspended just below the rafters. There, in those rafters, tiny sparrows flitted from beam to beam, and chirped at Sapnap’s arrival. It smelled strongly of hay and leather polish, heady and thick in the air, and of the sheep which raised their heads to blink up at him with round, dark eyes.

Sapnap moved to stand at the enclosure, and patted the head of the nearest sheep. Its wool was soft and curled, and he could have stayed there forever just sinking his fingers into the downy texture. 

He was reminded bitterly of Karl, and the way he would sit in the pen with the sheep, buried in the hay, and just stare up through the windows at a thin sliver of night sky. The first time Sapnap found him there, it had been coincidence. 

He had left his hat in the barn. When he went to retrieve it, he swung his lantern in a wide arc across the space, and the orange glow caught against the pallor of Karl’s skin, backed up into the corner of the stall with those wide, unfocused eyes. 

“Karl?” Sapnap had called. There was no response, so he crept closer. A small, violent part of him wondered if Karl was dead.

But he wasn’t dead. His chest was rising and falling, and his eyes darted as if he were in a dream.

“Karl, come home,” Sapnap whispered. “You’ll freeze out here. It’s too cold for you.”

But what did he know, leading his friend by the arm back to the farmhouse? What did he know about cold when Karl looked right through him and saw something vast and unimaginable in his place? What did he know about cold when he was stuck waiting in this stifling warmth?

The sheep wandered out into the pasture, and Sapnap watched them, bent over the fence that marked the edge of this plot. It made him anxious, to see them spread out and defenseless. He knew that no harm would come to them, not this far away from the Assembly. Still, he kept his hand at his side, ready to pull his sword from its sheath.

He spent the next hour tensed like a coiled spring. He thought about foxes.

Finally, Sapnap was able to tear himself away from the herd, and he turned to head back home along the red dirt path. He collected the rest of his memories, scattered in the grass, hefted the laundry hamper into his arms. The house was warm the way it welcomed him. It was a tight embrace that didn’t feel quite right how it wrapped around his shoulders.

Dinner needed to be made, and this was the easiest chore of them all. Every night, Sapnap made the same thing. He knew how to make other meals, and he might have liked to try them, in another life. But beef stew was easy, and it was hearty, and it, too, was warm. When Karl returned, drifting in on a white wind that smelled like sand and wine and barley, he would have something familiar waiting for him. Even if that something couldn’t be Sapnap anymore, he would make sure that his hands had chopped the meat and his farm had grown the vegetables.

The meat cooked in a pot over the stove. Karl reminded Sapnap of Dream. It was an idle connection that smelled like blackstone and heat. Both of them had shown Sapnap kindness that he hadn’t felt like he deserved. Both of them had left. There was nothing more to it.

There was nothing more, even though lava bubbled behind Sapnap’s closed eyes, and he could almost choke on the soot that filled the air. There was nothing more, because Karl would come back. There was nothing more, because Dream was in jail, and because he had tried to hurt Sapnap, had _succeeded_ in hurting Sapnap. Dream wasn’t coming back.

Red wine simmered in the pot now alongside the cubes of beef. He left it covered to sit in the dining room. His seat was to the left of Karl’s at the head of the table, and it was already set. Sapnap wasn’t sure why that made him anxious. 

Maybe it made him anxious because it was a promise. Dream had promised him a lot, back when their world was new and _Assembly_ tasted fresh like grass cuttings. He had promised they would be best friends, and that they’d rule this new land together. In turn, Sapnap had promised his sword. He had been Dream’s right-hand firebrand, the runic flame that lit his arrows in the sky. He was tongue-in-cheek and bold and sharp as anything, and that sharp edge had kept him alive for so, so long.

But Dream wasn’t coming back. Dream wasn’t coming back, because he had broken that promise. He’d taken their friendship and wielded it as a weapon, just as Sapnap had turned himself into steel to be sheathed and drawn when he was needed. Sapnap had knelt, and had been surprised to be pushed down into the dirt.

George knew those hands on his back, just as Sapnap did. Maybe that was why he had strayed so far away. He and George, they made each other anxious like a set table. At their shoulders, both saw the white mask of the friend they thought they knew.

That was the reason that George was gone. If the two of them had to simmer in each other’s company, Sapnap had a hard time believing that there would be much of a home for Karl to come back to. It was easier this way, with him here and George far away. After all, Sapnap lived in silence. 

Ever his opposite, George recoiled from the quiet like it might bite him if he relaxed for too long. He didn’t know patience, didn’t understand it. Routine was something to criticize, when there was no laughter, no charged tension, no _anything_ to sink his teeth into or to watch with the lazy fascination of a sleepy cat. 

So he searched for Quackity. It was more of a purpose than it was an excuse, but it still stung to watch one of his oldest friends become a gray smudge on the horizon. 

The stew was done reducing. The hands of the bronze clock on the wall had spun enough times that Sapnap knew the next step would come, whether he wanted it to or not. One after another, onions and carrots and potatoes fell into the pot. They were swallowed by the violet broth, and came to rest at the surface three shades darker.

Sapnap kept the stew on the stovetop to keep warm and left to finish his chores. Across the fields, the sheep needed to be herded back into the barn. That was an easy task, and the lambs were docile as he nudged them in place. Through the barn doors they went, their wool still hot from the afternoon sun. They settled into the hay, and he shut the doors gently as he left.

Sapnap wandered through the orchard next, pulling back leaves to look for budding fruits. He tightened the scarves around their necks, straightened them where they needed to be straightened. 

He found himself fitting sheets onto the bed, stirring the stew as he passed through the house, tucking them tightly over the corners of the mattress. The quilt came last, and it settled heavily over the rest of the blankets. It was ugly and gaudy and unmistakably Karl.

It was unfair, Sapnap thought as he returned to the kitchen, that Karl had made this place a kingdom and then a house and then a home, and had left his fingerprints in every inch of it. That was the real tragedy, not that Karl was gone and that he wouldn’t stop leaving, but that he had ever made a place to leave in the first place.

Now Sapnap sat in an empty house in an empty field with a bowl of empty stew, and he waited because waiting was all he had ever known, because waiting was love and that was how he was meant to love his family. He waited for George to come home with Quackity riding alongside him, grinning around the scar on his lip. He waited for a reason to forgive Dream, even after all the things he had done for the sake of cruelty. He waited for laundry to dry and for apples to ripen and for sheep to graze and for stew to cook, but mostly Sapnap just waited for the warmth in his chest to feel like something else. If it was cold or hot or wet or dry, then he might find a reason to leave.

Sapnap waits, and Karl doesn’t come, and he goes to sleep in a silent farmhouse and dreams of leather and paper and ink. This is how his story goes.

**Author's Note:**

> karlnap enjoyers, TO ME
> 
> actually that's a bad idea, because I am only capable of writing deeply sad, emotional pieces about two platonic soul mates with two different love languages who can never seem to look each other in the eyes and say what they mean. that's on me sorry guys
> 
> in case you were curious, the beef stew that sapnap makes every night can be found at this link: [ https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/4735-old-fashioned-beef-stew ] so just copy paste this bad boy into the search bar and you too can mourn a friend who still walks the halls of your broken home :D
> 
> kudos and comments are so, so greatly appreciated. it means the world to me to know you guys enjoy what i'm putting out there, the more tangible the better ;). you can also subscribe to my profile to be notified when i publish a new work, or follow me on twitter @Mariigold86 and check in there if you prefer
> 
> as always, it's been a pleasure


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